Political forces at a glance

The UK is a parliamentary democracy. The legislature consists of an elected lower chamber, the House of Commons (650 seats), and an unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords (about 825 members), which was partly reformed in 1999. Pending a second stage of reform, most members of the House of Lords are appointed life peers. The UK is ruled by a minority government led by the centre-right Conservative Party under its leader, Theresa May, with the support of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist party (DUP). The Conservatives lost 13 seats in the snap election in June 2017, despite winning a higher percentage share of the vote compared with 2015, and had to negotiate a confidence and supply arrangement with the DUP, giving it a two-seat parliament majority. The Labour Party gained 30 seats in a swing of almost 10 percentage points from the 2015 election, giving it 262 seats. The snap poll in 2017 moved the next scheduled general election to May 2022. However, the government's minority status and the divisions within the Conservative Party over Brexit mean that there is a significant risk of another pre-term poll.